Supercontinuum generation and pulse compression in hollow waveguides

We present a theoretical study of temporal and spectral characteristics and pulse compression in hollow waveguides, using a global approach to dispers ion without application of the slowly varying envelope approximation. A nov el ultrawide self-phase modulation-induced spectral-broadening regime with spectra covering almost 3 octaves is predicted for a pressure at which the group-velocity dispersion parameter is small and anomalous. Compression to subcycle pulses by an appropriate broadband modulator and pulse shortening without chirp control by a spectral filter are studied. (C) 2001 Optical So ciety of America.